I am quiet now, and silence gives you space
by orange-yarn
Summary: The 100 High School AU, Part 3. Figures that the one time that you scored an invite to a party that didn't include a clown and/or a rousing game of pin the tail on the donkey you wouldn't even get to remember it. (Jasper POV. Sequel to "there are answers here they're just harder to figure out.")


**Here is part three of the high school AU, this time from Jasper's POV. Follows "I can't help the fuss, I'd trade it for quiet," and "there are answers here they're just harder to figure out." You should probably read those first.**

**Title is from "Fake You Out" by Twenty One Pilots.**

* * *

You don't remember the party.

It's weird - here it is, this huge, life-altering event, a bonafide near death experience, and you remember exactly zero percent of it. It's all that anyone who knows you can talk about anymore, and you've got nothing.

You remember that morning. It was Friday, the last day of conditioning before soccer tryouts the next week. You remember it was so hot you were worried your cleats would melt, becoming one with the asphalt, as you stood there in the parking lot with Monty, talking to Bellamy Blake. There was a party that night, he had been saying, the whole team was invited, and he clapped you both on the shoulder and flashed a confident grin. You remember a surge of excitement, because hey, maybe you actually had a shot at making the team. Bellamy wasn't about to invite a bunch of rejects, right?

The rest of the day is just blank. It sucks, because apparently the party was pretty rad, not counting the part where you almost died. Figures that the one time that you scored an invite to a party that didn't include a clown and/or a rousing game of pin the tail on the donkey you wouldn't even get to remember it.

Then next thing you do remember is waking up in the hospital, two weeks later.

Clarke was there. Clarke looked worse than you felt, which was pretty terrible, even through the haze of drugs pumping into your system. Clarke had been _crying,_which is how you knew that things were really, really bad. You remember trying to talk, to ask what had happened, but your throat felt like you'd been swallowing glass, and your voice was a ragged croak.

Apparently there had been swelling in your brain after the accident, and you'd been in a medically induced coma. You were lucky to be alive, and even more lucky that you were still yourself. Things could have gone a whole lot worse. The doctors gave you a pretty good prognosis, considering what had happened. You were expected to make a full recovery, but warned that it would take time. You figured you could deal with that. It was just frustrating, not really knowing how all of this happened.

People filled in the gaps for you, supplied the missing pieces from your memory, and that helped, a little. You just wished you could remember it for yourself.

Monty came by, the day after you finally got out of the hospital. He sat cross-legged on your bed and played video games, while you laid curled up on your side and tried to stay awake. You could tell he didn't want to talk about it, but you asked him anyway. He told you about that night, every detail of the party, and you knew he wasn't sugar coating because he didn't skip the embarrassing parts. You hoped it might trigger_something_, even just a hint of a memory, but nope. Nothing.

You fell asleep before he even left. You'd have thought that after two weeks in a coma you'd be rested up, but you'd never been so exhausted in your entire life. That got boring really fast, and before long you were tired of being tired.

* * *

You're getting better, finally. Sure, your doctors have nixed soccer, or any kind of contact sport, actually, but you've been cleared to go back to school. You've finished the second week of classes, and everything is finally starting to fall back into a normal routine.

Well, almost everything.

Your accident changed Clarke. After your parents got married, and after you'd decided to stop hating each other, Clarke had sort of appointed herself as your babysitter. She kept you from getting into too much trouble, and chewed you out when you ignored her and did something stupid anyway, which was just about every time.

You didn't appreciate it when you were ten, but by the time you were fifteen and she was talking the neighbor out of pressing charges after you kind of maybe set his mailbox on fire, you finally figured that she had your best interests at heart.

In the weeks since the accident, she's barely let you out of her sight. You don't hold it against her, because you can't. You nearly _died_, of course that's going to affect the people who care about you.

And you're starting to realize, it's affecting you, too, and not just the missing memories. You're anxious, nowadays, you're constantly on edge and jumpy, and it's usually over the dumbest things. You're doing your best not to clue Clarke in, but you think she suspects something's up. You never were any good at keeping things from her. If she finds out how you've been feeling, about the ever-present dread that's taken up residence in the pit of your stomach, well, that would kick her newfound overprotectiveness into maximum overdrive, and she's already dangerously close to obsessive. You still haven't decided if her hovering is endearing or annoying.

Honestly, you think it's a little bit of both.

* * *

"Clarke," you say, and you wonder how many times you're going to have this exact conversation over the next few months. You're thinking probably a lot. "You really don't have to come."

Clarke ignores you. She asks, "How far away is this school?" and squints at the map on her phone, dragging her finger around on the screen to find the little blue dot that says YOU ARE HERE.

You're sitting in Clarke's car at early o'clock on a Saturday morning, a couple of hours before the Rocketeers's first away game of the season. You didn't even really want to go, is the thing, you would have been happy just showing up and cheering for Monty when they played at home. You only suggested this trip because you figured Clarke would finally draw the line at driving all around the state to follow a frankly sort of awful high school soccer team.

Turns out you were wrong about that. You feel like you lost a game of chicken, and if you fess up now and say you would rather stay home, you'll just lose _even harder_.

"I can ride with Monty's parents," you try, but no dice. Clarke is still messing around with her map, and not even pretending to listen to you. You pull the phone from her grip and punch in the address, and wait while the directions load up. Forty-five minutes, according to the app, but Clarke is all about safety first, and drives ridiculously slow, so you tell her, "About an hour," and set her phone down in the cupholder. "I'm serious. I can call Monty-"

"-It's fine," Clarke interrupts. "It'll be..._fun_." She says the word like she's allergic, which is equal parts sad and hilarious. Maybe you are actually doing her a favor, dragging her to these games, because otherwise she'd probably be at home studying, or doing something else that's just as boring and responsible. At least you're getting her out of the house.

And even if she doesn't manage to enjoy herself, there's a packet of face paint in your pocket that pretty much guarantees you will.

* * *

**Just so you know, the next story will PROBABLY switch back to Clarke, because there are a few things I want to set in motion with her plotline. I say probably because this story was originally going to be from Octavia's POV, but I realized that story would fit better a few slots later, so you got Jasper today instead.**

**Also, I would very much like to get the next part done by next weekend, but ABSOLUTELY NO PROMISES. I teach children during the week, and have zero time to write. I barely have time to write on the weekends, either, but sometimes I just have to put all of my lesson planning and grading away or else I will go crazy, and that's when I write fanfiction.**

**Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think! :)**


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